Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 08_ Edge of Victory 01_ Conquest - J. Gregory Keyes [50]
“Your first time on a true world, Adept?”
Nen Yim turned, thinking to find one of her fellow adepts speaking to her, but suddenly arranged the tentacles of her headdress into genuflection when she saw it was no such lowly creature, but her new master, Mezhan Kwaad.
The master let her finish, then beckoned her to face her. “You may turn your eyes on me, Adept.”
“Yes, Master Mezhan.”
Mezhan Kwaad was a female nearing the final edge of youth. If she were not a shaper, she might yet bear a child, but of course that was the one form of shaping forbidden to masters of their caste. She was lean but still wore the form of a mature female, despite her high status. Her broad, high-cheekboned face bore the ritual forehead scars of her domain, and her right hand was an eight-fingered master’s hand. Her other alterations, in keeping with the aesthetic of the shapers, were more discreet. The marks of her sacrifices were not external, as they tended to be for the other castes. She wore the body-hugging oozhith of a master, its tiny cilia rippling in subtle waves of color as it sought and captured the alien microorganisms in the atmosphere to feed itself.
“And answer my question,” the master went on.
“Yes, Master. I have never before known a world outside of our worldships.”
“And what are your impressions?”
“Our worldships are built for centuries, perhaps millennia. Yun-Yuuzhan created planets and moons for millions and billions of cycles. The resources in the moon’s interior are released slowly, by tectonic processes, or by life adapting to lack.” She looked back down at the dirt beneath her feet. “But it does feel so strange, the unimaginable wealth I’m standing on. And the life! Different from our own, and varied, and none of it made to serve us!”
The master shaper narrowed her eyes. “It is made to serve us,” she said quietly. “It is the will of the gods that life serves us. You were taught this.”
“Of course, Master,” Nen Yim said. “I only meant we have not shaped it yet. But we shall.”
“Yes, we shall,” Mezhan Kwaad agreed. “And I emphasize we. Do you know why you are an adept, Nen Yim? Do you know why you are here, and not correcting the mutations of methane-fixing recham forteps in a decaying maw luur?”
“No, Master.”
“Because I saw your work on the endocrine cloister in the worldship Baanu Kor.”
Nen Yim knotted her headdress in a humble posture. “I only did what needed to be done,” she said.
“You did it optimally. Many would have stopped short at the molding of tii, but you went beyond that. You applied the Vul Ag protocol, though such has never been used in an endocrine cloister.”
“I thought it would make the outer osmotic membranes more efficiently transpire—”
“Yes. Tradition and propriety are of absolute importance to our task, and yet immersion in those qualities can lead to hidebound thinking. I need adepts who are resourceful, who can use the sacred, unchanging knowledge in new ways. Do you understand?”
“I believe so, Master,” Nen Yim answered cautiously. A small lump of fear formed in her throat. Did the master know?
But she couldn’t. If she knew that Nen Yim had dabbled in heresy, she would never have promoted her. Unless she herself—
No. Not a master. That was impossible.
“Don’t believe,” the master said. “Know, and you shall go far. Do you see? As you say, after generations we have a whole new galaxy of life at our fingertips. It is time to demonstrate exactly what Yun-Yuuzhan intended us for.”
Nen Yim nodded, watching the damuteks again. They were already splitting from their protective skins and beginning to expand, to grow into highly specialized shaper compounds.
“Come, Adept,” the master said. “It is time to receive your hand.”
“So soon?” Nen Yim asked.
“Our work begins