“Next is the one I translated for you earlier, from the Bith species, Aalagar race: ‘He will ruin those who deny justice.’
“The scarlet-and-black one was easy, as it was the second of the tactile writing systems I learned-a recording technique used by the prisoners on Kessel. ‘He will choose the fate of the weak.’ “
Though Jacen didn’t move, Ben felt a jolt of emotion from him. Nelani must have felt it, too; she gave Jacen a curious look, but he did not acknowledge it, keeping his attention on Dr. Rotham. The scholar seemed to be oblivious to the exchange.
“I can’t determine the meaning of the next one in sequence, the poisonous-looking yellow-and-green one. After that comes a very tricky one. The red, yellow, and pale green tassel is actually a representation of a flower arrangement, from the old Alderaanian language of flowers-imagine it as a bouquet in a vase, the red and yellow splotches constituting the petals and the green the stems, and you get a sense of it. Its meaning is ‘He will choose how he will be loved.’ Actually, instead of ‘he’ it should be ‘I,’ but I’m taking the liberty of assuming that the third person is to be used here, as it is everywhere else.”
“Speaking of which,” Nelani interrupted, “is it definitely ‘he,’ or could it also be read as ‘she’ throughout?”
Dr. Rotham shook her head. “It isn’t defined in all the tassels, but everywhere it is, it’s distinctly ‘he.’ Where was I? Oh, yes. After that, a very simple one. The gray-and-brown one is from a still-extant Coruscanti subculture of indigents, transients who pride themselves on being jobless, living by theft and begging. They leave messages for others of their kind, symbols on the walls of shops to say, for instance, that a restaurateur is an easy touch. This three-dimensional representation of their language states, ‘He will win and break his chains.’ “
She continued. Ben, increasingly bored, began to lose focus, taking only distracted note of her translations: ” ‘He will shed his skin and choose a new skin,’ ‘He will strengthen himself through sacrifice,’ ‘He will crawl through his cloak,’ ‘He will know brotherhood,’ ‘He will make a pet’-by which I don’t mean he will tame some creature, but that he will somehow fabricate a pet …”
Mostly Ben kept his attention on Jacen, for on one or two other occasions the revelation of a tassel’s meaning again caused his emotions to spike to the point where Ben could detect them.
Finally Dr. Rotham’s translations reached the end. “This one you already knew. Ryloth, Tahu’ip culture: ‘He will strengthen himself through pain.’ To be honest, I don’t know whether the order of presentation is significant. It could be random, or it could add up to a specific thought. I just have no way of knowing.”
Jacen nodded. “That’s all very helpful, Doctor. Um, you skipped one.” He stood and reached out to the hologram, his fingertips touching a tan tassel featuring jagged black lines.
“Yes … I could not translate that one. Though I’ve seen the recording method before, the zigzag patterns, the arrays of protruding claws and teeth.” Dr. Rotham looked uncertain. “In statuary and figurines from the world of Ziost.”
This time it was Nelani who looked startled.
Jacen accepted the information with a simple nod. “It means something like ‘He will be drawn from peace into conflict,’ or maybe ‘His life will be balanced between peace and conflict.’ “
The scholar gave him a curious look. “How do you know?”
“Believe it or not, I just feel it. The tassel’s meaning is imbued within it in a fashion that only a Force-wielder can read.”
“I can’t read it,” Nelani said.
Jacen shrugged. “Maybe when you’ve broadened your range of Force-related learning a bit.”
“What’s Ziost?” Ben asked.
“One of the worlds central to the origins of the Sith,” Nelani said, her tone low, as if she wanted to avoid being overheard.
“There’s actually a substantial Sith influence to this collection of statements.” Jacen gestured at the hologram. “Several of them seem to be paraphrases of portions of the Sith creed. The one about victory and chains, for instance. What we have here is an item fabricated by someone who is at least as familiar with Sith matters as a Jedi historian would be.”
“I hope it is only a historian,” Dr. Rotham said. “One last thing I can tell you is this: I brought in a beadcrafter to look at these items, and he’s certain that they were crafted by different hands. So you’re not dealing with a single individual who is expert in all these recording techniques. You’re dealing with someone who has collected them, arranged for their assembly, rather than someone who has fabricated them all. Which is a considerable relief to me, because the alternative would be that I have an academic rival I’ve been unaware of all these decades.” She drew a hand over her brow, miming a gesture of relief.