The room burst into shouting, accusations, and exclamations as several of the members of the Historical Council and their guests realized for the first time who the previously rude droid actually was. Q9-X7 hovered forward, threatening to unleash another piercing shriek to silence them. Several covered their ears, but the room quieted down, all eyes upon him.

“Na’al!” Janzikek’s voice resounded with accusation, his predatory, reptilian nature lending it a brooding undercurrent. You’ve known me long enough to know I don’t appreciate practical jokes!”

“I’m not playing one,” Voren Na’al said defensively.

“Are you telling me that this Q9-X7 astromech droid that you earlier referred to as ‘Master Mnemon’ is actually Hextrophon’s droid, Cuenyne-Exseven?”

“How many Q9s do you know?” Cuenyne asked.

“Apparently, one is too many!” he rasped in irritation.

“Master Mnemon, um, Q9, it appears you’ve been keeping secrets from all of us.” Na’al had already guessed as much, but he said it in a chiding tone so as to prevent further loud recrimination.

“I have not been keeping secrets,” Q9 responded patiently. “Master Mnemon is the title Mistress Mnemos gave me. If any of you had bothered to look into my background—which you wouldn’t because you still think of droids as little more than ambulatory gadgets that exist solely to make your lives easier…” several companion droids in the room chimed in with loud beeps, warbles, and articulations of assent, “then you’d have known that I was Hextrophon’s companion.”

“This isn’t the time for a sermon on droids’ rights,” Graf-Well roared.

“Perhaps you can tell us exactly what happened,” Na’al interjected.

“Actually, I can answer that,” Mungo Baobab said, standing up. “Mistress Mnemos had contacted Auren and I to tell us what Arhul was planning. It seemed rash and a bit exciting, but when he heard he’d gone to the blasted Hellhoop, we came after him, fearing the worst. We arrived a few days after they’d left, and in time to see his ship emerge out of a wormhole.”

“We were gone for weeks,” Q9 replied.

“That would be the time dilation factor,” Reina Solov acknowledged. “Look, I may not accept much of this, but from a quantum physics perspective, it supports Hextrophon’s account. It happens in Hyperspace all the time, which is why ships are equipped with relativistic shields to compensate. Pocket dimensions such as Otherspace would see time flowing at a different rate from the perspective of Realspace.”

“There was nothing about that from the crew of the Celestial?” asked Janzikek, still vexed by what he felt was a ploy on the opposing team’s part.

“Well, if they were lying—as some of you are claiming,” grunted Baobab, “they’d have stayed away considerably longer to account for his time in Otherspace!”

“As far as those odd-looking ships he reported, I can comment on that,” offered Corellia Antilles. “One of those huge, archaic vessels lies derelict in the Valtava sector, contorting the Hyperspace lanes in the sector for lightyears around. After investigating an asteroid belt of crimson crystals spilling from its fractured hull, the Gree, who are not prone to exaggeration, reported that the ship emanated evil power and warned that any who boarded risked opening themselves to the black mind of the one that waits dreaming. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s basically one of the unsettling things Areana was translated as having said.”

“It wasn’t the only unsettling thing,” Baobab added, “and I’ve seen a lot over the years. Some… kind of… tendril was holding onto their ship when it emerged. I can’t describe it, but it was horrible. There was a blinding flash, and it was gone. I made contact with Q9 and tractored the ship in, bringing Hextrophon back to Chandrila.”

“Where he recovered under my care,” interjected Dr. Tonique, who had arrived earlier during Seldona’s reading. Her hair was up in a halo braid with a low bun, and a simple but elegant mauve tunic offset her chestnut skin. “As he himself indicated, I did not agree with Arhul’s unconscionably reckless excursion into Otherspace, but that was his choice to make. With the history he obtained from the Watcher, Q9 and I began helping him collate the voluminous amount of data into a relatively cohesive narrative of the ancient galaxy.”

“Of course you believe him, he’s your friend!” accused Hanapen.

“Friendship has nothing to do with it,” she shot back sternly. “We are professionals, though your own combative nature of late has caused me to question that.”

Hanapen seethed, but before he could go on the offensive, Tem Eliss cut in. “She’s right, Abric. You’ve been irritatingly hostile these last two days.”

“I call it being a good scientist!” he shot back but otherwise stayed silent.

“Misqa, perhaps you can help us understand why Arhul chose to compose the manuscript the way he did?” Eliss asked.

“It was his decision not to write it in the usual manner but as a hybrid of narrative and annalistic styles. I don’t pretend to understand it myself, but he’d made it clear that it wasn’t intended for this body but for the public…”

“Then the public can publish it,” someone shouted from the crowd.

Misqua ignored it. “In regards to the details that some of you have taken umbrage with, some of it was derived from… I’m not sure how to properly describe them… visions, he said they were. These were different from the nightmares that were troubling him… Before you scoff, the visions were very specific in nature, and in ways that are hard to make sense of rationally. Arhul challenged me to test the information he received from them against recently uncovered history that could validate their worth or disprove them altogether. At the time, historians had only begun studying the holocron of Dathka Graush. So I went to the Coruscant Museum, where the holocron was undergoing study, and Q9 went to Fusai to apprise Mistress Mnemos of their discoveries. I hadn’t wanted to leave, but he insisted we had to be kept safe. He died a few days later.”

“He surmised that, following his experience in Otherspace, some kind of tenuous connection had been established between him and those entities that had oppressed him in that sidereal realm. That’s what the nightmares were about.”

“Q9, were you also aware of these premonitions?” Eliss asked. “I’m trying to ascertain why the manuscript contains elements that not only pre-date the Osserians but include private conversations and thoughts of beings that no one could know! Unless his original hypothesis was correct—that the Watcher’s tale included myth and legend—it appears to us that Arhul added fictional elements to the account, which I would deem an unwise choice, even if it does make it more digestible to the public.”

“You’re under the false impression that the discoveries we made were simply taken in stride,” the droid admonished. “Hex’s entire worldview was shattered, and he struggled with the implications of that. He had no interest in adding fiction. His nightmares and visions made him depressed and angry, but not insane. The main reason he sent me and Dr. Tonique away was to protect us and ensure that the information got out. That’s why no one could know in advance that we were involved. But verifying those visions was another part of it.”

“And did you?” Eliss’ eyes flashed with a keen glint.

“Yes!” Professor Tonique declared. Gasps of astonishment burst from the crowd. “No one knew the contents of Graush’s holocron save for those researchers studying it… and me. Graush had apprenticed under Darth Dreadwar. Arhul could not have known this or the details Graush’s holocron revealed.”

“And the material I received from the Watcher does not include those elements,” Q9 explained, “though it does verify the greater part of the events that transpired before and during the course of the Cosmic Wars. Because we had that verification, he felt safe adding such details, particularly as they provided necessary context.”

“That is most curious,” Eliss said. “I will have to take this into serious consideration.”

“It doesn’t much matter,” Janzikek added. “Sith history is one thing, but we can’t be expected to accept at face value conversations between Celestials and the thoughts of various gods and demons.”

“It stands to reason that if the one is true, so is the other,” Hoole indicated.

“I don’t see what all the fuss is,” interrupted Myk Bidlor. “I’m a forensic expert. That means I look at hard evidence with scientific principles in mind. And, frankly, I haven’t heard anything that would disqualify Hextrophon’s story from being true.”

“You were a crime scene investigator for the Hutts,” charged Jedi Archivist Mander Zuma, the second of Tionne Solusar’s apprentices to have joined the conference. Unlike Veste Gesdol, he wasn’t buying any of it. The Force was as natural to him as sunlight and rain. It didn’t need to be tainted with mysticism or religion, which were just different types of mind-tricks as far as he was concerned. Zuma’s accusation against Bidlor was apparent. Zuma didn’t personally dislike Bidlor, but he knew of the influence he wielded in some sectors and wasn’t about to let him skate by on his charisma and still-boyish good looks.

“You worked for the Hutts, too!” Bidlor countered.

“I worked with the Hutts,” Zuma corrected, “and that was strictly to find the source of a dangerous substance and its producer.”

“Same difference,” Bidlor scorned. “The point is: I live by facts. That doesn’t mean I’m so blind as to doubt there’s some weird and unexplainable flarg out there!”

“They’re only weird and unexplainable until we can investigate and explain them.”

“You know, Zuma, restating conventional wisdom over and over doesn’t make it so,” Bidlor argued. “I mean, how many of you believed the Nevoota Bee was real until I discovered a colony in the Markaran Plains of Balmorra?”

“Not this again!” exclaimed Donn Gulek.

“Yes, this again!” Bidlor demanded. “Most of you thought it was a Mandalorian myth. And even when I furnished proof, some of you tried to handwave it away, insisting they were ‘mutated quigs.’ So do you remember what I did? I wrote an adventure story about them! While the lot of you were mucking about with semantics, the galaxy came to know that the Nevoota Bee is an actual creature and a genuine threat!”

“Bidlor’s right,” blurted Charon Thanas just as several were getting ready to object. “Apologies, Professor Eliss, but this is crucial.” When the Iyra nodded, he continued. “You have to have some embellishment; otherwise you lose the average citizen. I’m a self-taught historian who’s researched places as far ranging as Kathol and Cularin. I’ve seen things that most wouldn’t believe. To get people to accept what is outside the everyday norms, a certain amount of dramatic license must be allowed…”

“So now we have a TIE fighter pilot telling us how to conduct our affairs!” Gulek griped angrily. Other members nodded and raised their voices in agreement. If they couldn’t discredit Bidlor, they could certainly discredit Thanas. Had he not twice aided the New Republic, he’d not have even been allowed in the building, let alone the meeting, regardless of his friendship with Na’al and Organa Solo.

Knowing what they were up to, Bidlor spoke up in his defense: “Thanas only joined the Empire because he was told his parents were killed on the Death Star.”

“And then became an Imperial spy!” Hanapen interjected. “I’m not sure why either of these men have been given a platform today!”

“That is all ancient history!” Tipn cried. “Thanas spent his remaining fortune liberating the Dralion System from the Vong while waiting for the New Republic to come and help… which they never did!”

“Our citizens come before Imperials,” Hanapen insisted.

“I wasn’t Imperial at that time,” Thanas stated calmly.

“Were you not rewarded with an invitation to the Inner Circle?”

Thanas had to wait for the crowd to die down. “Until the Emperor perished. By accident I came upon Princess Leia, who let me know that my parents died on Alderaan, not on the Death Star, and convinced me to stand trial. I remain in your debt, Princess!”

Leia nodded before adding, “I vouched for him then as I do now. Fortunately, most of Thanas’ missions as a TIE fighter pilot were against pirates and Imperial traitors, and it should be noted that his choices were as much a casualty of the war as Alderaan was.”

“I see we’re being selective with history today!” Hanapen carped. “Or are we to conveniently forget your service to Thrawn.”

The audience was enthralled at this new debate. Thanas just sighed. “I built a casino and spaceport called Gambler's Rock. Around this time, I met Bidlor and Na’al, who inspired me to become a historian. When Thrawn came to power, I had no interest in politics, but the destruction of Gambler's Rock by the New Republic made my decision for me. So I served alongside Maarek Stele. When Palpatine’s clones proved insane, I came to my senses and sabotaged the missile before it struck the New Republic’s headquarters on Nespis VIII. Later, with Na’al’s help and Jedi Master Tionne’s, I became a historian.”

“I know of you, even if these others don’t,” Professor Eliss declared. “Your work in the Cularin system has been invaluable, as has your research on the ancient Jedi and Sith. I see no reason why you shouldn’t be formally invited to this society, and rest assured that I will bring the matter to discussion. But back to the immediate subject at hand: have either of you courageous men perused the rest of Arhul’s manuscript?”

“Well, I’ve skimmed it…” Bidlor admitted. “What? It’s bloody long!”

“I’ve read portions,” Thanas acknowledged.

“Which means that you two are very likely unaware that Hextrophon claims to have composed some of his material after his death. Unless that was more poetic invention, this body is unsure how to account for that.”

“I received his final transmission two days after his body was discovered. I have no doubt it was him, a fact I substantiated by means of knowledge only he would have. I cannot explain it; none of you can. But it is my belief that he reached out to me from a place the Jedi colloquially refer to as Beyond Shadows…”

“Utter bosh!” exclaimed Zuma. Everything else was drowned out by surprise, anger, and nervous laughter, with not a few annoyed at the incorporation of “Jedi mysticism” in what they saw as a cheap attempt to bolster an improbable narrative. Demands were even made to have Q9’s testimony entered as evidence of malfunction or bias.

Q9 responded in kind, calling his opponents a “gaggle of feleks” and a few other inappropriate terms.

In the midst of the chaos that erupted, a wild-eyed Hanapen stood up to castigate Q9: “How dare you presume to criticize us, we who are your makers and?natural superiors? Based on this imaginative fiction, not to mention your deceptive manipulations, I make a motion that this fantasy be immediately filed in the Spurious Directories, where a special committee can determine what little legitimacy there might be amongst the mumbo-jumbo.”

“Ironic that you of all people would question legitimacy,” Cuenyne intoned, drawing closer to where the Velmoc stood guffawing. “You and your companions have been trying to shut us down for quite some time, haven’t you? You know, you’re not the only one who’s been watching the Council.” Q9 then floated uncomfortably close to the Velmoc’s face on his repulsorlifts.

“You don’t scare me, machine,” Hanapen whispered darkly to him, “I’ve seen better than you shredded to pieces in agonizing screams of despair.”

“I know you have,” the droid responded. “Now, it’s your turn!” The astromech suddenly whipped out several metal appendages; two of those that ended in large claws plunged deep into Hanapen’s upper chest so that he couldn’t pull away; another was a whirring buzzblade that Q9 used to slice deep into Hanapen’s neck. The Velmoc wailed and tried desperately to push the droid off but was unable to dislodge himself while the blade shred deeper, causing Hanapen’s tendons to be severed in wild ejaculations of foul green fluid that sprayed all over his associates until the head was finally seared off and bounced to the floor.

It all happened so quickly that everyone just stood in utter shock and horror. After a moment, the audience rose up in a rush of outcry and commotion! But Q9 echoed in a loud, commanding voice, even as he continued to hold on to Hanapen’s headless corpse: “Remain where you are! All is not as it seems!”

Amidst the terror and confusion, Na’al shouted, “Silence, please! That’s not Velmoc blood!” Neither Hanapen’s severed head nor the opening in his body showed a drop of the red ichor or pulpy gore that Hanapen should’ve spilled, only the green, fetid exudation… and then something even stranger happened.

An ebon thing, ink-like, approximating that of a tall humanoid, emerged out of the body from the neck and floated upwards like smoke from a cigarra. No features at all could be discerned upon its face or body, for the thing was etched in deepest shadow; but its eyes glowed ochre with hatred. The ebon simulacra emitted a short, subsonic noise, and, in that briefest of seconds, if one looked to where the creature’s face lifted, one would have seen not the Grand Hall’s ornate ceiling, nor its elaborate, five-hundred-year-old Scillalian chandelier, but a vermillion and charcoal sky with pinprick black spots and eerily floating, moribund spheres. But the vision passed quickly, and the necromantic thing seemed to laugh. Then, like the accursed and sable demon it was, the Shadow Being shot up through the portal into the beyond, where it was not seen again.

Only then did Q9 drop the body. “Well, that takes care of that!”

The room broke out in released terror and a great clamor that lasted a long while. Na’al used the time to have the building personnel remove Hanapen’s remains.

Q9 eventually floated back to his spot, though several in the crowd recoiled as he passed them by.

Janzikek’s voice trembled as he was heard to say, “It must have been some kind of mutant Defel?”

“A Filar-Nitzan most likely!” added Thanas.

“No, both are quite different,” Hoole responded. “Nor was it any of the known shapeshifters. Even I cannot pass through solid walls.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” gasped Wolam Tser.

“Some kind of Dark Side illusion?” Garv Debble postulated.

“Possibly,” responded Anki Pace. “But that thing seemed different.”

“I know what I saw!” Baobab protested, paling at the recollection.

“It was Hex’s murderer,” said Q9, “a Shadow Being. I initially thought it must have escaped into Realspace when we came through the wormhole, hitching a ride unto the Explorer when the thing it rode attacked us. But there could be another explanation.”

“Q9, if this is another of your elaborate hoaxes…” Janzikek warned, but even he seemed shaken. The whole room continued to stir and mill about, stunned and anxious for anything that would explain away the horror they’d just seen.

“I assure you, it’s not,” Q9 replied with a touch of annoyance.

“Well, I hope you have some explanation… besides the supernatural!” Gulek charged.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Donn,” Q9 returned, “but that’s the only explanation I have. I made a point of learning who each and every one of Hex’s opponents might be; anyone who would have cause to see his work buried. Hanapen, as it turned out, was a high-ranking member of the Liberty Builders.”

“Conspiracy nonsense,” Janzikek spat. “Dozens of Council members have an affiliation with the Liberty Builders. They’re a charitable organization, not worshipers of Bogan or acolytes of Typhojem or whatever delusion you and Hextrophon conjured up.”

“Only their high-degree adepts are let in on their secrets. But if you read their forbidden texts as I have,” Cuenyne continued undaunted, “you’ll see they make no bones about their sacred symbols, philosophical beliefs, and origins which come directly from the Azurite Society of Lords, the Heinsnake Cult, and the Krath—all of whom espouse ideas that are, for all intents and purposes, identical to that of the Sith and other dangerous groups, including beliefs in N?kh?sh, the Shadow Father, and invocations to the Y? Magz?r, translated as ‘Ancient Masters,’ and the K? Gothur, or the ‘Old Ones.’ I found these very supplications in a secret room in the sub-basement of Hanapen’s home, a room covered in strange symbols. It was clear what he’d been doing.”

“And what is it you think he’d been doing?” Janzikek demanded. “Practicing one’s religious belief, no matter how strange or offputting it might seem, does not mean you can sentence and condemn him to death!” Janzikek practically shouted.

“I can show you the recordings,” Q9 offered.

“Perhaps not right now,” Na’al interjected. “I think we’ve all been traumatized enough for one day.”

“Fine,” Q9 continued. “You may not want to believe it, Janzikek, but I suspect that Abric Hanapen used an ancient summoning spell to conjure a Shadow Being of some kind. He believed it would serve him as a familiar, maybe to bring him greater wealth or prestige. But he made a mistake: the thing he summoned does not serve any but its master. It tried to take him over, but he resisted. So it killed him and exsanguinated his body, after which it embalmed the corpse with its own ectoplasmic fluids to prevent any hint of decomposition; finally, it went about impersonating him.”

“There is precedent for similar phenomena,” Jedi Master Tionne offered. “We cannot discount the childhood of Sith Emperor Vitiate or the uncovered journals of Hethrir, who belonged to the Order of the Canted Circle, and who may be responsible for summoning Waru from Otherspace on orders from Palpatine after he felt stirrings in the Unknown Regions.”

“The former Procurator of Justice was probably as deranged as Hextrophon,” quipped Professor Roi Tenne. “And Vitiate is ancient history. This is all speculation.”

“You would say that,” Q9 said sharply, “being a member of that same secret society. Mistress Mnemos decrypted your files. I think the heads of the Council will be quite interested in reading what amounts to a conspiracy to ensure that Hextrophon’s datafiles were destroyed or sent to the SDs. That documents are now in your datapads.”

It didn’t take long for them to read the decrypted files. They were damning enough to have Tenne and Hanapen’s immediate associates publicly censured and removed from the chamber, with additional consequences pending further examination and trial.

“Well, I can assure you that I am part of no conspiracy,” insisted Janzikek, “and none of this justifies you slicing off Hanapen’s head! As you said, that thing probably followed you from Otherspace?”

“So, you do believe we went to Otherspace?”

The Tisshar grinned mischievously. “That does not mean I believe the rest.”

“There’s more,” the droid said unfazed. “I also kept tabs on your families.”

Janzikek uttered an exasperated sound. “Of course, you did!”

“The thing that impersonated Hanapen might’ve fooled his colleagues—but not his wife. Some weeks ago, she left him to stay with their eldest daughter. I took the liberty of interviewing Mrs. Hanapen. She admitted that she was?afraid of him. He had become a virtual stranger to her, claiming she no longer knew the Velmoc she’d married.”

“What if you’d been wrong?” Janzikek swore. “All you’ve given us are unorthodox hobbies, some indiscretion on the part of the Obroan Institute, and the misgivings of his wife! Some of my own wives have said similar things about me! Would you slice off my head as well?”

“Much as that would bring me pleasure,” Q9 said drolly, “I did have a little more to go on than that. I make it a point to keep myself regularly upgraded with all the newest advances and modifications. For example, I’m outfitted with a sophisticated detection package that includes a residual heat-trend directionalizer and a molecular backtrack sniffer. For the technologicallychallenged amongst you, these are scanning devices that can discern and follow the heat and chemical trails of a wide variety of organic beings. Hanapen’s registered wrong. As I drew closer to him, I could detect that his body was not only emitting no heat-signature, but his chemical essence was not what it should have been. In short, Hanapen could not have been a Velmoc—not a living one, anyway—and this confirmed that he was an energumen that must be destroyed.”

“You could have led with that!” Janzikek’s complaint aside, the Tiss'shar was clearly perturbed by the revelation and its aftermath.

“I think, perhaps, a thank you is in order,” Na’al stated. “This has all been… disturbing, to say the least. I know the Council does not want to drag this on for another day, so I suggest we deal with all of this after we retire for a break, a meal, and perhaps a drink to collect our wits. Whoever wants to stay with us into the evening can.”

After thanking Hari Seldona, he concluded, “Anyone who still has the nerve should gather back here in an hour to complete the reading and hear the conclusions that Hextrophon went to such lengths to reveal. Master Mne… I mean, Q9, are you up to completing the remaining part of your former master’s journal?”

“You’ll hear it in his own words,” Cuenyne replied.