Refugee: Force Heretic II (47 page)

“They haven’t been able to help her,” Goure interrupted, “because they don’t know what is wrong with her. They are looking for a physical ailment. They won’t find one, because Tahiri is not fighting a disease. She is fighting herself.”

Jaina glanced at Leia, then back to Goure. “She told you about her problem?”

“I saw enough to confirm what I had already heard. Everyone in the Ryn family knows the story of the Jedi-who-was-shaped. We know that the Yuuzhan Vong Shamed Ones tell it to each other as an epistle of hope. We also know that it is not encouraged outside certain circles of the Galactic Alliance. If word got out that a Jedi had been corrupted by the Yuuzhan Vong shapers—that such a thing was even possible—the growing support for the Jedi could be dramatically eroded.”

There was no point denying anything that Goure said. “It’s true,” Leia admitted. “Mezhan Kwaad tried to turn Tahiri into a Yuuzhan Vong warrior by giving her a new persona—that of a Yuuzhan Vong warrior called Riina. My son Anakin rescued her and managed to break the programming. We believed the new persona had been erased, but it seems more likely now that Tahiri had simply buried it.”

“Not ‘it,’ ” said Goure.
“Her
. Riina of Domain Kwaad does not want to be buried. She wants to live, as does any intelligent being. Until she’s allowed that, she will not lie easily.”

“She’s real?” Jag asked. “She’s not just a figment of Tahiri’s imagination?”

The Ryn shook his head. “In a manner of speaking, Riina is as real as Tahiri herself. You see, Tahiri wasn’t simply brainwashed to think and act like a Yuuzhan Vong. Mezhan Kwaad designed Riina to be a person in her own right—with everything that entails. When Tahiri came back, she had more than just the knowledge of Yuuzhan Vong language and customs in her head; she had the makings of a new personality in there with her, wanting control of her body.”

“But Tahiri got better,” Jag said. “She was fine.”

“Only until Anakin died,” Leia pointed out. “Ever since then she’s been struggling.”

“But this Riina couldn’t just have reappeared for no reason,” Jag argued. “Something must have triggered her emergence.”

“I agree,” Goure said. “And I think that trigger was when the Galactic Alliance recently began making progress against the Yuuzhan Vong. Don’t forget that when Riina came into being, her people were on the rise. She may have fallen, but so had Coruscant; so had the Senate. Her personal loss was overshadowed by the victories her compatriots were enjoying. Ultimately, I don’t think she ever expected the Yuuzhan Vong to lose—as they very well might, now. In the face of defeat, the spirit of the Yuuzhan Vong is fighting back. Unfortunately for Tahiri, this is taking place within rather than without, as it is for the rest of us.”

“So how do we get rid of her?” Jaina asked, her eyes shining with tears. Leia knew that Jaina felt responsible for Tahiri’s breakdown and injuries on Bakura. She had suspected Riina’s presence on Galantos, but hadn’t known back then what to do.

“There’s only one way to be sure of doing that,” Goure said.

“And that is?” Jaina pressed.

The Ryn fixed her with an even and calculating stare. “To kill Tahiri, of course.”

“What?”
Jaina’s voice was cold and angry. “Don’t even
think
of joking about something like—”

“This is no joke, I assure you.” The Ryn’s tail quivered with repressed energy. “The basic mistake everyone in this room is making, is assuming Riina to be something that can be simply excised from Tahiri. However, Riina isn’t some kind of tumor; she’s as much a part of Tahiri as Tahiri is.”

Jag shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

The Ryn looked apologetic. “I’m not entirely sure that I do, either, to be honest,” he said. “Although I suspect that my species has a greater affinity for outcasts and refugees than most people, having spent most of our history being either or both. Since Yavin Four, Tahiri has been set apart from everyone else by virtue of her experience and her knowledge of the enemy. Anakin accepted her, but then he died, leaving her alone. We know that the idea of family is very strong among the Yuuzhan Vong, so she might have attempted to attach herself to you, Anakin’s family. Ultimately, though, it wouldn’t have been enough to keep her stable. What she needed, no one could give her, except herself.”

The Ryn came to the side of Tahiri’s bed and placed a hand on her forehead. If she registered his presence, she made no sign.

“The shapers know what they’re doing. When they set out to turn Tahiri into a Yuuzhan Vong warrior, they did exactly that.”

“But they failed to get rid of Tahiri,” Leia said.

Goure nodded. “Thanks to Anakin, she was able to come back—only to find that her mind was now inhabited by someone else. And that someone had no intention of going away quietly, either. From Riina’s point of view, Tahiri is the interloper. Tahiri has done little else but resist her ever since her reawakening. Unfortunately it’s a battle that cannot be won, and it’s taking a terrible toll on her mind.”

“If it can’t be won,” Jaina said, “then what are you suggesting we do about her?”

“Simple,” the Ryn said, turning to face her. “We have to help them learn to live together. We must teach them how to become one.”

Jaina’s incredulous laugh came out as a short, sharp bleat of defiance as she rose to her feet. “I don’t think so.”

Leia stepped forward to assuage her daughter’s anger. “Jaina—”

“No, Mom,” she said quickly. “Teach Tahiri to
accept
the Yuuzhan Vong in her? After what they did to her? After what they did to
Anakin
!”
She shook her head firmly. “I won’t let that happen. There has to be another way of removing Riina without harming Tahiri. There
has
to be.”

Goure met her anger unflinchingly. “There isn’t,” he said soberly when her outburst had abated. “Just as Bakurans cannot integrate the P’w’eck and remain the same as they were before, so, too, is it with Tahiri and Riina. Moreover, there is a similar urgency. The P’w’eck and the Bakurans had to work together in order to save the planet from the Ssi-ruuk; now Tahiri must work with the personality of Riina Kwaad to save herself from madness.”

Jaina opened her mouth to object, then shut it when her mother touched her arm. Leia could sympathize with her daughter. The idea that Tahiri couldn’t be cured of the treatments the Yuuzhan Vong had inflicted on her did sound preposterous, but she also knew that everything they’d so far tried had failed miserably.

“Okay,” Jag said, “assuming there is only one option, then how do we go about it, exactly?”

The Kurtzen stepped forward. “Like Riina,” he said, “my people have been cast out and ostracized from the place in which we feel we belong. It almost killed us, but as have many others in such situations, we found our own way to survive. We believe that the power of life focuses in the objects we surround ourselves with. Either inadvertently or intentionally, the things we gather reinforce who we are, making us stronger or, at times, weaker. In a balanced life, the internal and external worlds reflect each other perfectly. When a life is imbalanced, internal and external aspects must be adjusted accordingly.”

“That’s all well and good,” Jag said. “But again I have to ask: what do we have to do to help Tahiri?”

The Kurtzen native opened one of the pouches at his side. Reaching inside, he removed a small, wooden totem, its carved surface worn back by time. “We Kurtzen focus aspects of our lives’ energies in items such as these. When our inner self lacks a particular aspect, we use these objects to bring ourselves into balance. Goure says that Tahiri had such an object in her possession. A silver totem that she produced at a time of crisis.”

Leia reached into her robe and produced the pendant that Tahiri had taken from her and Han’s bedroom that night, just before she’d fled.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” She placed the silver pendant in Arrizza’s callused hand. The tiny representation of Yun-Yammka glared up at her, as though vowing vengeance. “Tahiri blacked out when she found this on Galantos. She blacked out again when I confronted her with it the other night in our room. She was also holding it when they brought her in to the infirmary.”

“This is it,” Arrizza said. He folded the pendant in one hand and closed his eyes.

He seemed to collapse into himself for a moment then—his impression in the Force changing in a way Leia had never seen before. She couldn’t help wonder just what he was doing, or what he was sensing. The pendant belonged to the Yuuzhan Vong and they were invisible to the Force, so there was no way they could have left any impression on the tiny statue.

Unless, of course, the “power of life” the Kurtzen had referred to was something else entirely.

With the attention of the room upon him, Arrizza stood silently as if in a trance. He muttered something unintelligible under his breath and clutched the pendant tightly in his grasp. In her life, Leia had experienced many strange traditions on many worlds. The Kurtzen’s actions weren’t
surprising or outlandish, and they were meant well, but she didn’t have the heart to tell him that they weren’t likely to help.

Clearly, though, Jaina wasn’t so willing to accept the gift in the spirit it was offered. She kept staring at Tahiri, shaking her head. As if reading her thoughts, Goure stepped up and placed a reassuring hand on Jaina’s shoulder.

“I know how you must feel about this,” he said. “But remember, while the personality of Riina is undeniably Yuuzhan Vong, she doesn’t represent all that the Yuuzhan Vong have done these past years. If she can be accused of anything, it can only be of trying to survive.”

“I don’t care,” Jaina said. “She’s still Yuuzhan Vong.”

“But she’s a victim in all of this,” Goure said. “Just as Tahiri is.”

Jaina looked as if she was about to argue this, but the Ryn cut her off. “Tell me, was Tahiri herself when the bomb went off?”

“What? No, Riina had taken her over by then. Why?”

“So it was in fact Riina who created the Force bubble. Riina who saved the lives of those in the stands above by staying close in to the bomb where she knew she would have the greatest effect.” The Ryn’s stare was piercing, and beneath it Leia saw Jaina’s stubbornness flag slightly. “Is that the work of someone who deserves our contempt? Someone who deserves to be put down?”

Jaina looked away from Goure, back to Tahiri’s motionless body. “So what are we supposed to do? Sit back and let Riina take her over?”

“We have a choice to make. We can either help both of them, or we can watch them both die.”

Leia felt the responsibility Goure was giving them like a heavy weight around her neck. He was asking them to do something potentially very dangerous. She knew about Anakin’s vision of Riina as a dark force sweeping across
the galaxy; and she also knew that the vision could well come to pass if Riina was released, with all Tahiri’s knowledge of the Jedi to back her up. Cilghal had once described one of the Yuuzhan Vong’s other hybrid creations—the voxyn—as “part of this galaxy and part of the Yuuzhan Vong’s.” If Goure was right, Tahiri would have to achieve the same state in order to survive, and there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t end up as murderous and vicious as those creatures.

But in the end, Leia had to have faith in Tahiri’s strength and resolve not to allow Anakin’s vision to come to fruition.

Arrizza’s silent mumbling ceased, and he opened his eyes. Goure stepped aside as the Kurtzen approached Tahiri’s bed. No one spoke as Arrizza held the silver pendant with one hand and rested the other on Tahiri’s forehead. His lips moved soundlessly. There was no response from Tahiri as the Kurtzen gently placed the pendant on her chest.

“Are you sure we should leave that there?” Jaina asked a little anxiously.

Arrizza nodded. “It is traditional. It will help cleanse her spiritually.”

With that, Arrizza bowed reverently over her, holding the moment with an indrawn breath, then finally exhaling and backing away.

The sound of boots clomping along the corridor outside broke the sudden quiet of the room. Leia turned to see Han walk into the room, a look of some urgency on his face.

“We’ve just received word from Luke,” he said, stepping up to Leia without acknowledging the others in the room. “He says …”

Han stopped, looking around the room, noting for the first time the people gathered by Tahiri’s bed. “What’s going on?”

Leia was about to explain the healing ceremony that Arrizza was trying to perform, but decided against it before she started. She didn’t particularly feel like listening to her husband’s cynical
sounds-like-mumbo-jumbo-to-me
speech.

“I’ll explain later,” she said instead, taking his hand in hers.

Han accepted this with a nod. “I heard the Ryn was here. Where’d he go?”

“He’s right—” It was her turn to leave a sentence unfinished. “Well, he was.”

“My friend had no intention of staying any longer than he was needed,” Arrizza said, stepping forward. “Before we arrived, however, he did ask that I give you this.”

The Kurtzen handed a sheet of flimsiplast to Leia. She unfolded it and read, with her husband reading it also over her shoulder.

My apologies for leaving so abruptly. I received word this morning that I am required elsewhere. Part of my instructions was to advise you to travel to Onadax at your earliest convenience. You will be met there
.

When she awakens, please extend my heartfelt thanks to Tahiri for all she has done here
.

With gratitude, Goure

“I am sorry,” the Kurtzen said.

“Don’t be,” Han said. “It’s not your fault. I was just hoping to ask him about Droma.” He took the note from Leia and scanned it again. “We’ll be met there,” he paraphrased. “Does he mean by another Ryn, by the head of the family, or by someone else altogether?”

“It’s not really made clear,” Leia said. Despite—or because of—that, her interest was definitely piqued.

“Isn’t Onadax in the Minos Cluster?” Jaina asked.

Leia nodded. “It’s not all that far from Bakura.”

Han looked concerned.