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disdain. Idiotic, to warn her of secrets. She was a heretic, a heretic secretly kept by the Supreme Overlord. Everything she did was done in obscurity.
        “Master Nen Yim?”
    Nen Yim looked up from the qahsa. Her junior assistant Qelah Kwaad stood a few feet away, a look of great concern on her face.
    “Adept,” Nen Yim acknowledged softly.
    “I hope it is not too impertinent, but my project—”
    “I will examine your progress in due time,” Nen Yim said. “My time.”
    Qelah Kwaad’s tendrils retracted a bit. “Yes, Master Yim,” she replied.
    “And, Adept?”
    “Yes, Master Yim?”
    “I understand you are not used to the presence of Onimi and the effect he can have. But I will not have my subordinates laughing behind my back. Is that understood?”
    The adept’s eyes grew round with consternation.
    “Master Yim, you cannot believe—”
    “Do not use the word
can
in reference to me, Adept, in either the affirmative or negative form. What I can and cannot do is entirely beyond your control.”
    “Yes, Master.”
    Nen Yim sighed. “It is bad enough, Adept, that we have to bear the presence of such an abomination. It is worse to let him know he has caused amusement.”
    “I understand, Master Yim. But—why? Why must webear his presence at all? He is a Shamed One, cursed by the gods.”
    “He is Supreme Overlord Shimrra’s jester, and, when it pleases him, his emissary.”
    “I don’t understand. How can such a thing be? A jester, yes, but to entrust him with secret information—”
    “What secret information might that be, Adept?” Nen Yim asked sharply.
    “Your pardon, Master Yim, but the jester came, took you to the restricted area, and you returned with a portable qahsa. It seems obvious that he revealed something to you.”
    Nen Yim studied the adept appraisingly.
    “Just so,” she said. “You are correct. But perhaps you ought to concentrate more on your work and less on my activities.”
    Again, the adept looked abashed.
    “You have great promise, Qelah Kwaad,” Nen Yim said. “But in this place, we must all take care. We live outside the world of our people, and this place has rules of its own.”
    The adept straightened. “I am proud of my service here, Master. The Supreme Overlord has vindicated what the other shapers see as heresy.”
    “He has not,” Nen Yim said. “Not publicly. Nor will he. Have you not noticed the guards?”
    “Of course we are guarded. Our work is of great importance. If the infidels learn of us, they will surely try to destroy us.”
    “That is true,” Nen Yim told her. “But a wall that keeps something out can also keep something in. No warrior, no priest, no outside shaper will ever learn what we do here. Shimrra values our heresy, yes—we produce new weapons and technology badly needed for the war effort. But he will never allow anyone beyond these to know
how
that technology comes into being.”
    “But why?”
    “You are intelligent, Adept. Figure it out for yourself—and then never, never speak it aloud. Do you understand me?”
    “I—I think so.”
    “Good. Now leave me.”
    Qelah Kwaad made the sign of obeisance and did as she was told. Nen Yim spared her a single glance.
    Because, Adept, Shimrra must maintain the fiction that our inventions are gifts from the gods, and that he is the intermediary through whom these things flow. If the truth is discovered, and the Supreme Overlord shown to be a fraud …
    Well, suffice to say, Adept, none of us will leave this service alive
.
    Which was fine with Nen Yim. It was her pride and her duty to serve the Yuuzhan Vong, and to die honorably for her people when the time came.
    Putting the whole matter from her mind, she settled the qahsa before her and interfaced with it.
    As she began to understand, her excitement grew—and her trepidation.
    No wonder Shimrra had sent her his thing. It could change everything.
    It could be their doom.

FOUR
    “Can’t say much for the atmosphere,” Raf