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“I do.”

Mezhan Kwaad’s eyes were oily pools, utterly unreadable. Nen Yim met her gaze steadily, without flinching, for a very long time.

“I have searched for an apprentice like you,” the master shaper finally said. “I have asked the gods to send you to me. If you are not what you appear to be, you will not be forgiven. You will not profit from any betrayal of me, I promise you that.”

That gave Nen Yim a start. The thought that the master might be afraid of her had never crossed her mind.

“I am your apprentice,” Nen Yim said. “I would not betray you. I have put my life and my position in your thirteen fingers.”

“They are well placed, Adept,” Mezhan Kwaad said softly. “Proceed as you have just suggested. Do not speak to anyone but me about this. If our results are to the liking of our leaders, I assure you they will not look closely at our methods. But we must be discreet. We must move with caution.” She glanced once more at the pool and touched her head.

“When the pain of the Vaa-tumor reaches its peak, there are colors to be seen that have never been seen before, thoughts to be had, strange and mighty … Well, you will see. At times I am almost ashamed to have it removed, to retreat from the final embrace of it. I should like to know where it would take me.” She gave Nen Yim a rare genuine smile. “One day the gods shall ordain it. Until then, I have much work to do for them.” She draped her eight slender fingers on Nen Yim’s shoulder.

“Let us go see our young Jeedai, shall we?”

The Jeedai watched them come in. Only her green eyes moved, following them closely, like one beast seeking the soft throat of another.

“I would advise you not to attack us with your Jeedai tricks,” Mezhan Kwaad told her. “The provoker has been told to stimulate you to great agony if we are afflicted in any way. Though in time you will come to understand agony, at the moment you seem to dislike it, and it clearly disrupts your concentration. There are worse things we could do to you.”

The Jeedai’s eyes widened. “I can understand you,” she said. Then she stopped, looking even more confused. “I’m not speaking Basic. This is—”

“You speak our language now, yes,” the master shaper said. “If you are to be one of us, you must speak the sacred tongue.”

“Be one of you?” The Jeedai sneered. “Thanks, but I’d much rather be the slime under a Hutt.”

“That’s because you perceive yourself an infidel,” Mezhan Kwaad said reasonably. “You do not understand us, and there are things that confound us about you and the other Jeedai. But we will understand you, and you will understand us. You will become a tissue connecting the Yuuzhan Vong and the Jeedai, nurturing both. You will make it possible for understanding to flow both ways.”

“That’s what you want from me?”

“You are the path to peace,” Mezhan Kwaad assured her.

“Kidnapping me won’t get you peace!” the Jeedai shouted.

“We did not kidnap you,” Mezhan Kwaad said. “We rescued you from the other infidels, remember?”

“You’re twisting things,” the Jeedai returned. “The whole reason they captured me was to give me to you.”

The master’s headdress rearranged itself into an expression of mild anger.

“Memory is a most malleable commodity,” Mezhan Kwaad said. “It is mostly chemical. For instance, you now know our language. You did not learn it.”

“You put it there,” the Jeedai said.

“Yes. Your memory of the words, the grammar, the syntax. All introduced to you.”

“So you can implant memories. Big deal. We Jedi can do that, as well.”

“Indeed. I have no doubt those Jeedai abilities could do much to confuse one as young as yourself. How many of your memories are real? How many manufactured? How could you tell the difference?”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is this. Right now you think you are—what is it, Taher’ai?”

“My name is Tahiri.”

“Yes. Tahiri, a young Jeedai candidate, raised by a tribe strange to her—”

“Sand People.”

“Of course. But soon enough, you will remember. After we’ve stripped away the false memories and undone the disgusting modifications made to your body, you will remember who you