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“Map?” Jacen asked.

“Of the mines. From the Duros’ archives.” Leia raised a datapad. “Listen, Han. Out below the bluffs, just out of the marshy area, we did some camouflaging ourselves, weeks ago. We’ve still got one of the five big haulers that brought in almost everything for our original building site. It’s ungainly, but it made hyperspace getting here. It’d hold about two thousand, according to my figures.”

Han sat down on the floor beside her. “What’s wrong with it? Why didn’t SELCORE take it back? Why didn’t it take off already?”

Jacen watched his mom squint, frown, and shake her head. “I don’t remember. I’m sorry. Threepio would know.”

“He’s on the Falcon,” Han said.

“Can we comlink him?”

“You can try,” Han said, “but I’ve got him running preflight. I’ll check out the hauler. What did you do, bury it?”

Leia nodded. “Piled harvest debris on top. Our scanners would find it in a heartbeat, but the Yuuzhan Vong might not have thought to look down there by the bluffs. And we know they don’t have the technology.”

“They’ve got technology, sweetheart. They just build it in different ways.”

“Maybe,” she said with exaggerated patience, “they won’t have found it yet. I don’t know. But it’d be a lot faster to get there aboveground than by following this.” She brandished her datapad map of the mines.

“Skulking! Our specialty,” Droma put in.

Han broke a lopsided smile. “Not to mention ship repair. Okay, Mezza—Romany. Droma and I are going to go check out a hauler. As soon as the pick people break through, start people moving through the mines toward the bluffs, and station someone at Leia’s transmitter—but watch those side tunnels.”

“Right,” Jaina put in. “Nom Anor could still be down here. And if he is, he could Greenie-trap more ceilings.”

A few refugees stared up at the stone overhead.

All expression faded from Leia’s face. “A couple more hours, you said, till they’re through?”

Mezza nodded.

Leia stood up and brushed rock dust from the seat of her SELCORE coveralls. “Almost midnight,” she said. “There’s some time.”

“For what?” Han demanded. “Hey, Leia. Stay right here. I just found you. I want to find you again, when I get back.”

Leia compressed her lips. “Thanks,” she said. “Really, Han. Thank you—but you’re right. You’re in charge of this group, and I left something important over at admin.”

Han scowled.

Nom Anor led Tsavong Lah toward the laboratory built-thing, taking such obvious pleasure in walking unmasked that the warmaster briefly wondered what it would be like to live most of his life in an infidel’s guise, and pitied him.

They strode up the sandy main road between hideously ugly constructs, past a three-sided built-thing filled with monstrous machinery. Sgauru and Tu-Scart, the huge Beater and Biter creatures he’d ordered released, attacked the nearest wall. This symbiotic pair could destroy artificial constructs within minutes. As soon as his own energy-creating creatures nested down and started to feed, he would put Tu-Scart and Sgauru to work on whatever abomination the infidels used to fuel the overhead lamps.

Tsavong Lah turned to an aide. “Dig the pit here,” he ordered.

A contingent of warrior escorts fell out of the group.

Near the dome’s north edge, Nom Anor led him into a construct shaped like one of their ugly bricks. In the main hall, he heard sloshing and clanking noises.

“My coworkers,” Nom Anor said proudly. “When I unmasked, I told them that those whom you found at work, helping remove poisons from the planet, would be specially honored.”

“All accepted?”

Nom Anor blinked his genuine eye. “Two refused to work any further,” he admitted. “Even when I offered them full honor, and … amnesty.”

“Amnesty.” The tizowyrm in Tsavong Lah’s ear didn’t translate anything he could comprehend. “What is this?”

Anor smiled. “A word like peace, with two meanings. They define it in a way we do not. Something like … mercy.”

The tizowyrm didn’t translate that, either. “Explain