Rogue Planet

Chapter 32

Reaching the docking ramp, it turned out, was just the beginning of a new leg of their journey. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Jabitha, and Gann descended the carven steps of a steeply slanting volcanic tube to a low-ceilinged cavern set with dimly glowing lanterns.

They could hear the sound of rushing water.

"An underground river," Anakin said. Jabitha nodded, reached up, and touched the top of his head. He flinched, and she smiled.

"It's just a way of saying how smart you are! But we have to go some distance before we reach the river."

Obi-Wan had never enjoyed being deep underground. He much preferred the openness of space to the depths of a planet, though he had never admitted this to anyone.

After another twenty minutes, they emerged from the end of the tube into a wide round chamber carved out of the basalt. A stone slab jutted into swift water that flowed around the slab with a guttural rumble. Regular and frequent splashes darkened the rough surface of the rock. A slender boat floated in a calm spot in the slab's shadow. Ahead, they could dimly make out a mouth leading even deeper into the planet's crust.

They boarded the slender boat, and two male attendants pushed them away from the dock. Gann then poled the boat out of the calm, into the swift water. The river rushed them down the broad, dark channel.

The seed-partners were still. Anakin was concerned that they might be sick or even dead. Jabitha reassured them this was not the case. "They know we're going to see the forgers and shapers. It's a serious moment for a seed."

"How do they know?" Anakin asked.

"This river feeds the factory valley," she said. "It's carried seeds for millions of years. They just recognize it." "What are the Jentari?" Obi-Wan asked. "Grandfather trained them first. Trained them, or made them, or both! They're very large shapers that work for us and with us. You'll see." She sounded very proud.

As their eyes adjusted, they spotted long red lines glowing on the tunnel ceiling, well above the water. Gann played a torch beam on the rock, revealing unbroken, close- bundled tendrils of red and green. "Sekot sends these through the rivers and tunnels and caverns," he said reverently. "All parts of the planet are connected."

"Except for the south," Jabitha said quietly. "And why not there?" Obi-Wan asked. "I don't know," she said. "Father said it was all finished down there."

"That's where his house is," Anakin said.

Gann broke in. "The south died of a disease just a few months ago, the entire hemisphere," he murmured. His face appeared ashen, features wavering in the moving lights from the boat lantern and his torch.

His hands are shaking, Obi-Wan observed.

"Was it a war?" Anakin asked.

Gann tightened his jaw muscles and shook his head. "No," he said. "Just a disease."

"You shouldn't talk any more about that," Jabitha said. "Even I don't know what happened down there."

"Does your father know?" Obi-Wan asked.

She gave him a veiled look that held no small amount of anger. Best not to pursue the matter.

The river journey lasted several hours. Anakin and Jabitha sat on the bench at the bow, talking. Obi-Wan allowed his eyes to linger on the tendrils that glowed like tracer shells frozen in flight.

Wherever their destination was, a Sekotan air transport could have easily carried them there in a few minutes. The settlers were hoping to keep a few secrets from their clients. Or perhaps they understood the value of ritual.

Personally Obi-Wan found ritual a bore. Jedi training was remarkably free from it-only the greatest moments were so marked.

When conversation with Anakin lagged, Jabitha worked intricate geometric puzzles from a small lamina box she carried in her cloak. When she placed the box on the bench of the boat, Anakin noticed that a corner of the box fastened to the lamina of the bench. And when she finished a puzzle, the pieces re-formed into new shapes. She would never have to work the same puzzle twice.

Communication, coordination, constant touch-these people had harnessed a marvelous network of living creatures that seemed, all of them, intimately related, like a huge family.

How much more disturbing it must have been, then, for lit erally half the family to die of disease! Or to face the destruction caused by whatever energies had gouged the planet to bedrock along the equator.

Perhaps this journey was devious not because of a misplaced sense of ritual, but because of fear.