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Two organisms suddenly waggled to life, and between them appeared a hologram, showing something that might have been a map, complete with unfamiliar icons. One, shaped like a three-pointed star, was highlighted in red and moving rapidly. A few of the others were moving as well.

“That’s the fleet,” she said. “The fast-moving thing is us.” Her head turned toward them, though her eyes were hidden by the hood. “I don’t think anyone is following us.”

“Can you tell where the jump is taking us?”

Tahiri shook her head. “There’s a designation. It translates to something like ‘next prey to feel our talons and glory.’ ”

“Yag’Dhul?” Anakin speculated.

“We’ll see soon enough,” Corran replied. “If so, this ship may have been sent ahead to make tactical maps or something. We may be the first of the fleet to arrive. Anakin, you may get your chance to warn Yag’Dhul.”

“True,” Anakin said. “If the—who lives at Yag’Dhul, anyway?”

“The Givin,” Corran said.

“The Givin don’t blow us out of the sky. We are, after all, in a Yuuzhan Vong ship.”

“Well, there is that,” Corran said. “But we have a better chance there than staying here. If Yag’Dhul is where we’re going. We’re headed back to a Yuuzhan Vong base, for all we know.”

“You want me to try and stop the jump?” Tahiri asked.

Anakin watched Corran consider that. Then the older Jedi shook his head in the negative.

“No,” he said. “We’re in this deep. Might as well see what the bottom looks like.”

TWENTY-TWO

It was hard to read a Mon Calamarian. With their bulging, fishlike eyes and wide lips, they looked, to the untrained human eye, perpetually surprised or amused. They lacked the same complex facial muscles that humans had evolved for nonverbal communication, their species being possessed of another set of semiotic tools for that purpose.

Nonetheless, Mara somehow saw the horror on Cilghal’s face when the healer entered the medical chamber Booster had allowed her to set up.

“Oh, no,” Cilghal murmured. Her partially webbed digits fluttered in agitation. “Please, Mara, recline.” She indicated an adjustable medical bed.

“No problem,” Mara said. Her knees had gone flimsy on the short walk over from her quarters. Her mental image of herself had morphed into a huge bloated thing balanced on ridiculous, straw-thin legs.

What she saw in Cilghal’s clinical mirror fit no image of herself at all, past or present. Her eyes were sunken into gray pits, their emerald color faded to a sickly yellow. Her cheeks were hollow, as if she hadn’t eaten in days. Her skin was so pale the vessels stood out like topographic maps of a river delta on Dagobah.

What a beauty, Mara thought. I could dance in Jabba’s palace again, if I could dance. Of course, I’d attract a different type of admirer than I did last time …

Wait’ll Luke sees this. He’s going to have a meltdown. Unwilling to run the risk that some slicer could trace a HoloNet communication back to the Errant Venture, Luke had taken his X-wing out to contact several eminent physicians and transmit Mara’s latest test results. He’d been gone three days.

“I need to know what it means, Cilghal.”

“How do you feel?”

“Hot, cold. Nauseated. As if nanoprobes are trying to carve my eyes out from behind with microscopic vibroblades.”

The healer nodded and placed her webbed hands so gently on Mara’s abdomen that it might have been sheets of flimsiplast that floated there.

“Three days ago, when you went into meditation, how did you feel?” Cilghal asked.

“Sick. I already knew it was coming back. I thought if I was alone, in total concentration and without distraction, I might be able to control it like I did before.”

“This is not like before,” Cilghal said. “Not at all. The rate of molecular mutation has increased fivefold. It’s much worse than before you began taking the tears. It might be because so many of your body’s resources are tied up in the pregnancy; it might be because the serum weakened your ability to fight without it.” She closed her eyes, and Mara felt the Force in motion, within and about her. “It’s like dark ink, staining your cells.