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“I have concern for all living beings,” Anakin said.

“And now you sound like a Jeedai again,” she said.

How do you know so much about the Jedi philosophy? Anakin wondered. Where would a Shamed One get such information? Why would she be interested?

“Tell me,” Uunu went on. “Would a Jeedai be concerned about the fate of a Shamed One? As concerned as he would be for a person of high caste?”

“Yes. I have known Jedi. They protect all life.”

“Not Yuuzhan Vong. Jeedai kill Yuuzhan Vong.”

“Only when they must,” Anakin replied. “Jedi do not like to kill.”

“They are not warriors, then?”

“Not exactly, not from what I know. They are protectors.”

“Protectors. And they protect everyone?”

“Everyone they can.”

She chuckled again, a bit uneasily. “An amusing lie. The sort of lie that gives hope to those who do not deserve it. A destructive lie. Some Shamed Ones even—” She broke off again, this time angrily. “How is it you make me talk so, infidel? Work, and do not speak. Ask me no more questions.”

That night Anakin crept from the slave quarters. It was no great task. For most slaves, there was no escape from the camp itself. If they wanted to waste the precious hours of sleep they were allotted, the Yuuzhan Vong didn’t prevent it.

Reaching the fields was more difficult, but Anakin had plenty of experience with stealth. In a few moments, by the light of the orange gas giant, he knelt in the lambent field. The plants lisped softly, like a nighttime breeze through dark treetops. Beyond the perimeter of the camp, across the river, he faintly felt the life of the jungle. Somewhere inside of it, in a bed of aches and misery, he knew Tahiri’s fading touch.

He found the last of the harvested lambents and knelt beside the first of the next day’s harvest, staring for a long moment at the faintly illuminated stalk. Then, hardly daring to breathe, he reached for the swollen blossom and began to stroke exactly as he had seen Uunu do hundreds of times.

The petals were as soft as silk, rubbing easily from his fingers, and Anakin felt a faint touch, like an electrical shock traveling up his arm. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but more like the first taste of a food so exotic his tongue had no baseline for judging it.

As he stroked, the feeling deepened, and finally he felt not just his fingers rubbing the flower, but also the blossom being rubbed. He was the lambent, for a moment, and not only felt it wakening but felt himself awakened.

He continued until the small hum in his head was louder, more obvious than any impulse from the other plants, until the pod was smooth, then he blinked and carefully searched around him for movement. Here, in the camp, he was nearly blind and deaf. He couldn’t even use the jungle moon’s native life to sense what danger might be coming. If he couldn’t see it and hear it, it wasn’t there.

But his eyes found no shadows creeping, his ears registered no faint susurrus of motion, and so, producing his spurred thumb, he cut into the plant and stripped away the husk until he had the gem inside. He gripped it tight in his fingers, and almost without him asking it, it flared into gentle radiance.

“Yes!” he hissed.

Willing it dark, he clenched his fist tighter around it in a gesture of triumph.

Then it was back across the fields and through the houses. They were not silent at night; he passed the shrine of Yun-Shuno and heard moaning within. Whispers drifted from other doorways, and here and there someone paced in the darkness, restless.

Anakin kept going until he reached the edge of the star-shaped compound where he had exited the living boat. He slipped within.

The pool shone with a gentle phosphorescence that did not reach far below the surface. Anakin felt with the Force, hoping desperately his lightsaber was still there, where he had placed it days before.

The water was murky. He could sense it in the Force, but as if through a cloud. The crawlfish and their aquatic cousins were sensible, too, but somehow diffuse. It took