"Fair enough, " Obi-Wan said as they continued down the tunnel. "I’d never heard of it myself, so I’m not asking you to believe. "

Jesson shrugged, although he seemed satisfied that Obi-Wan was not trying to convince him.

"It is typical for a colonized people to identify with their oppressors. This yearning for an alien rescuer is pitiable. It is hive-hatred. "

Obi-Wan was about to speak when Jesson raised his primary arms. "Be very quiet. " The X’Ting brushed past a curtain of hanging moss. Curiously, once on the other side Obi-Wan heard a steady droning sound. The moss seemed to have functioned as some kind of damper.

Then Obi-Wan gasped. He felt he had walked into a fantasy realm, where gravity itself was suspended.

Hanging from the ceiling was a series of swollen blue spheres attached as if by an invisible adhesive. No legs or arms or anything resembling faces were visible. He reckoned that these creatures were the same species as Regent Duris’s assistant Shar Shar, but much larger. They were vaguely translucent, with thin blue veins. By the dim fungal light he could see organs pulsing slowly, as well as some kind of distended stomach or bladder.

"What are these creatures? " Obi-Wan asked.

"Their species are Zeetsa. We feed them, and they produce a food called Lifemilk. Once our people depended upon them, and we lived together. But over time they developed more mind and will. Those who wish to join our society are allowed to do so, while those who choose a more peaceful, quiet existence can have that, as well. "

He sighed, and for a moment seemed to forget his antipathy toward Obi-Wan. "Lifemilk is a great delicacy. " He turned to the Jedi. "As an offworlder, you can afford it more readily than most X’Ting. "

The bluish surfaces of the Lifemilk creatures gave off a calming, peaceful radiance, but even had Jesson been more sanguine, Obi-Wan would not have chosen to sample at this time.

One never knew the effects of alien foods, even benign, and he had to rely upon all of his senses in the coming hours.

The room was warm, almost uncomfortably so, and Obi-Wan swiftly determined that the heat emanated from the many bodies crowded together.

As he watched, the smooth surface of one of the globes began to roil. A bulge recognizable as a nose appeared, followed by two eyeholes, emerging from the surface almost like a creature floating up through a pool of oil. Obi-Wan blinked, startled, as similar faces grew on two of the other spheres. Generalized faces, something between an X’Ting and a human, almost as if the Zeetsa had no real form of its own, instead borrowing appearance from its neighbors.

The three spheres with faces pivoted to watch the intruders who had awakened them from their long, productive slumber.