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The chill deepened.

“What’s wrong?” Tahiri asked.

Nen Yim sighed. “Those are my memories.”

Tahiri stared at her for a long moment without speaking, as if trying to see through her skin. Nen Yim was glad for that, because she had to collect her own thoughts. Mezhan Kwaad, she thought, may the gods devour you twice a day.

Tahiri finally dropped her lids over her green eyes. She seemed to be trying to compose herself.

Or perhaps she was about to kill Nen Yim. The thought of her onetime tormentor sharing the same childhood memories might well be too much for her.

But when Tahiri looked back up, her gaze held only curiosity. “Whatever happened to P’loh?” she asked.

Relief spread down Nen Yim’s backbone. “She was assigned to Belkadan, and killed there,” she replied.

“And Zhul?”

“Zhul is an adept on the worldship Baanu Ghezh, and so far as I know is well.”

“And the young warrior who watched our dormitories in primary shaping?”

We, Nen Yim noted. She said we, as if … “Killed taking Yuuzhan’tar. They say he died bravely, crashing into an infidel ship even as his own disintegrated.”

Tahiri rubbed her forehead. “He was nice,” she said.

“Yes, if such can be said of a warrior.”

“As if I wasn’t confused enough,” Tahiri murmured. “Now I find out I have friends on both sides of the war who died. Maybe I even killed one of them.”

Nen Yim didn’t have a response to that.

“I have a lot of questions to ask you,” Tahiri said. “But now isn’t the time. I need—I need to absorb this.”

“As do I. I knew no more than you.”

Tahiri looked up. “I forgave you, you know. Even before I knew this.”

“I didn’t ask for that.”

“I know.”

“But I’m glad.”

For another stretched moment, they sat together. Tahiri was the first to speak.

“Uh … you were telling me about the qahsa.”

Nen Yim nodded, happy to return to a subject she could get a grip on. “I extracted nerve cells from Sekotan life and modified them as your cells were modified. It was an easier task, because Sekotan life is genetically similar to our own. I hope, through them, to gain access to the memories of this world, as I might access a qahsa.”

“But if those memories are transmitted through the Force, and Yuuzhan Vong life is outside the Force—”

“Consider, Tahiri. Your brain contains Yuuzhan Vong implants. Yet you still sense and use the Force.”

“Yes!” Tahiri said. “And when my personalities were integrating, Riina used a lightsaber, like a Jedi.” She peered at the qahsa. “So this could work.”

“It could. If one of the many assumptions I’ve made doesn’t turn out to be false. But I suppose now I shall see.”

“May I watch?”

“I would be honored.”

Nen Yim hesitated no longer, but reached for the qahsa and joined with it.

For an instant, there was nothing, and then the world seemed to shatter. Images and data roared through her mind, stars and vacuum, the feel of life on her skin, the tear of wind across her polar regions. Feelings—fear, pain, despair, joy, all on a scale that dwarfed the tiny Yuuzhan Vong brain trying to interpret it. The images came faster, running together, burning in her, casting light into every corner of her brain.

Please, slow down, this will kill me, and I will never understand.

It was something like trying to access the eighth cortex, but both less painful and, she understood, more dangerous. Her thoughts were disintegrating under the onslaught. Nen Yim was vanishing. Something else was hollowing her out. A god was eating her from the inside.

Nen Yim clasped the qahsa and a look of vast surprise twisted her features. Then her body jerked strangely and she fell over, convulsing, the qahsa still gripped between her fingers.

“Nen Yim!” Tahiri cried, starting forward. She reached to help her, to pull the thing from her hands, but stopped.

She didn’t know what was happening. Anything she did might make it worse.

Of course if she did nothing, Nen Yim might die, she thought, as the shaper’s convulsions grew more and more violent.

Carefully, she reached out in the Force. Nen Yim