Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 21_ The Unifying Force - James Luceno [20]
He caught Page’s eye and returned the stocky captain’s glower. “You sicken me. You bring your spouses, your mates, your spawn with you into battle. You yield rather than fight to the last. You are crippled, yet you display no shame. You persist, but without clear purpose.” He gestured to the Bith. “At least this one showed that he still retains some shred of courage.”
Carr began to pace again. “But I admit to a certain curiosity. From what I know of the Bith species, he probably could have sustained himself in the jungle, subsisting on the natural foodstuffs I have permitted to be brought inside these walls. The question is, why would he choose to endanger the rest of you by his show of disobedience? It can only be that all of you conspired in his escape, perhaps to deliver a message of some import. Was such the case here?”
Carr waved his hand in dismissal. “We’ll return to that shortly. Beforehand, those who were truly responsible must be punished.” He looked hard at Cracken and Page, then swung to S’yito. “Subaltern, order your warriors to form two rows. The smaller in one row; the taller in the other.”
S’yito relayed the order in Yuuzhan Vong, and the warriors obeyed.
“Now,” Carr continued, “the smaller warriors will execute the larger.”
S’yito saluted, then nodded gravely to the warriors.
Those sentenced neither protested nor defended themselves as they were run through with coufees or struck with amphistaffs. One by one, they collapsed, their black blood draining into the sand. Tonguelike ngdins oozed from niches in the yorik coral walls to sop up what the porous ground didn’t absorb.
Carr waited for the creatures to finish their work before striding over to the Bith and lowering himself to one knee. “After the act of courage you displayed, it would pain me to condemn you to an artless death. Why not escalate yourself in the last moments of your life by telling me why you tried to escape? Don’t force me to extract the truth from you.”
“Go ahead, Clak’dor,” Pash Cracken said. “Tell them what you know!”
“He was following orders,” Page added, gazing at Carr. “If you want to punish someone, punish us.”
Carr almost grinned. “In due time, Captain. But I suspect that if you know what this one knows, you would have been the one to escape.” He walked back to the bower. From beneath the seat, he pulled out the tkun he had nearly draped over his own neck that morning. Carrying the thick-bodied biot to the Bith, he arranged it around the prisoner’s thin neck.
“This is a tkun,” he explained for the benefit of the captives. “Normally it is a docile creature. When provoked, however, it registers its displeasure by coiling itself around the object on which it rests. Allow me to demonstrate …”
Carr prodded the tkun with his sharp forefinger.
Page and the others cursed and struggled in vain against their bindings.
The Bith began to gasp for air.
Carr watched dispassionately. “Unfortunately, the tkun cannot be persuaded to relax its grip once it has begun to contract. It has to be killed.” Again he kneeled alongside the Bith. “Tell me why you were so desperate to leave this wonderful home we’ve provided for you. Recite the information you carry.”
The Bith cocked his head to the side and spat at Carr.
“Not unexpected,” Carr said, wiping his face. Again he prodded the tkun, which contracted its body. The Bith’s black eyes bulged; his wrinkled face and dome of a head turned color. “I will gladly kill the tkun, if you tell me what I wish to know.”
The Bith crawled forward, then flopped on the sand like a fish out of water.
Carr poked the tkun a third time.
A rasp issued from the Bith’s throat; then he began to recite a formulaic series of numbers. Interested suddenly, Carr bent down to place his ear next to the Bith’s lips. He