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Anakin thought the conversation was over, but after a long pause Uunu suddenly caught his gaze and held it. Her voice dropped almost below the range of his hearing.

“Bail Lars,” she said. “Are you Jeedai?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“What?” Anakin sputtered around the yellowish paste he was already having trouble swallowing.

“Are you Jeedai?” Uunu repeated. “The question is simple.”

“But what makes you ask it?” Anakin said. “If I were Jedi, would I be a captive?”

“The shapers have one captive Jeedai. Rumor has it others are on this moon. And you—no one seems to remember you being brought here. As well, you do not act like a slave, somehow. You seem too unbent.” She eyed him speculatively. “Rumor also says that Jeedai sometimes allow themselves to be captured.”

“Well, I didn’t allow myself to be captured,” Anakin said. He figured that wasn’t a lie, since he hadn’t been captured at all.

He wouldn’t be captured now, either. He was alone with Uunu, and she was no warrior. He readied himself, trying to keep his breathing normal. He didn’t want to hurt Uunu. She’d treated him like more of a person than she had to. That wasn’t much, but he couldn’t discount it.

Then he noticed something about the set of her eyes. “You wanted me to be Jedi, didn’t you? I’ve disappointed you.”

Uunu sighed and touched her gaze back to the distance. “If you were Jeedai, you would have attacked me by now,” she said.

“You believed that and you still asked me anyway? Why would you take such a risk?”

“There is no risk. Warriors are hidden near here. I voiced my fears to them.” Her expression crumpled into chagrin.

The hairs on Anakin’s neck prickled up. Where were the watchers? He couldn’t see anyone. “Would turning in a Jedi have earned you out of the Shamed Ones?”

“Not in and of itself,” she said a little wistfully. “Only the gods can change my condition. But I should like to meet one of these Jeedai. And the discovery of a Jeedai might give Yun-Shuno much leverage to intercede for me.”

“You’ve mentioned her before. She’s your superior?”

“She’s a goddess, infidel. The goddess of the Shamed Ones. The only one who can make me a true Yuuzhan Vong.”

“Oh.”

“Return to your work.”

They started again, she stroking the blossoms bald and he cutting out the lambents.

“How does one become Shamed?” Anakin asked.

“Another impolite question,” Uunu said, but her tone was light, belying the chiding. “Some of us are born so. Others are cursed for misdeeds or sins.”

“I’ve heard that some Shamed Ones do not think they deserve their status,” Anakin said as casually as possible.

She barked a harsh laugh. “Deserve? What is deserve? We merely are.” She looked back at him, her expression suddenly knowing. “Ah. You speak of Vua Rapuung, the one who brought you to the prefect of clearing fields.”

“That might be his name. I’m not sure. But he muttered some things. Not to me—he hardly seemed to know I was there.”

“He is insane, Vua Rapuung,” Uunu said. “Once he was a great warrior. Now he is nothing. He cannot bear it, so he invents lies. Perhaps he even believes them.”

“Lies?”

“He claims a shaper infected him with something to produce the marks of Shame, from spite.”

“Why?” Anakin asked.

“Because she loved him,” Uunu said, “and he spurned her.”

“Love?” Somehow it had never occurred to Anakin that Yuuzhan Vong fell in love.

“Yes. But his story is impossible.”

“How so?”

“More ignorance! Because the gods who govern such things—the Lovers Yun-Txiin and Yun-Q’aah—would never weave passions between a warrior and a shaper. Yun-Yuuzhan eternally punishes the twin gods for their own transgressions; they would never dare his wrath again. It is not possible, and so Rapuung’s ravings are those of insanity. He is merely cursed, like the rest of us. Of late he has become even more erratic. I think the intendants will destroy him soon, if they have not already.”

“Destroy him?”

“Shamed Ones must show usefulness and humility. We do the work no true caste Yuuzhan Vong may dirty their hands with. If we do not do these things, we are