Above them stood Ord Cestus’s capital city of ChikatLik, a metropolis of six million citizens built into a natural lava bubble modified by the hive. The bubble’s natural gray glaze was a rainbow of reflected colors from the city lights and holoboards. ChikatLik boasted the architecture of a hundred cultures, was a forest of twisting spires and elevated tramways, airways filled with droid shuttles, taxis, personal transportation and trams of all kinds. The bubble walls concealed a network of transport systems within the ground itself: subways and magrails and lev tracks, technological wonders ferrying workers, executives, ore, and equipment.

But down here, far below ChikatLik’s streets, there was only the hive. Generations of hive builders had chewed and burrowed through the ground. The texture of the walls had a chewed duracrete appearance that Obi-Wan had noted elsewhere in ChikatLik, clear evidence of X’Ting construction.

Down in the lowest tunnels the walls were coated with rectangular patches of manicured white fungus that emitted a steady bluish glow. "Is this your form of illumination? "

Obi-Wan asked.

Jesson nodded. "The fungus is well maintained here, fed and trimmed. Farther back it grows wild, and the fungus eats into the walls, slowly widening the tunnels. "

The fungus had etched the rock until it seemed like the surface of some ancient sculpture.

Obi-Wan ran his fingers over it as they walked, felt that he was reading an ancient book of X’Ting secret history. "How many outsiders have been here? " he asked.

"You are the first, " Jesson told him.

Obi-Wan sighed. Jesson’s tone had been flat and cold. He and the X’Ting would have to come to an understanding, but he hoped to delay it until they had spent a bit more time together. "Where does this come out? "

Jesson turned to him, sneering. "Listen, Jedi. I will follow my orders and take you along with me, but I don’t have to like it. You offworlders ruined our planet. You cheated and brainwashed us and corrupted our leaders-"

"If you’re thinking of Quill, I believe he’s been removed from the council. "

"And replaced with Duris, " Jesson said. "I doubt she’s much better. "

"If you think so little of your leaders, why do you obey them? "

Jesson drew himself up to full height. "I obey my training, and the rules of my clan. I am loyal to the hive, not merely the council. And now the council wishes the return of the royals. This I will help them do. " His wings fluttered a bit. In the glow of the fungus they seemed like sheets of pale blue ice. "Make no mistake, Jedi. I will take you with me.

But fantasies about your great powers won’t save you in the deep hive. Maybe Duris believes that some sorcerer from Coruscant once saved the poor ignorant X’Ting, but I am no mewling grub, to believe such tales. "