might be before you or behind you or beside you, but if you turned your head to look, it was visible. If you walked around an object, you could see different sides of it—gain different perspectives. A crude analogy, but approximate to the way Cephalons saw time. A moment might be before them or behind them or on top of them—future or past or present—yet they could but turn their immensely complex minds and perceive it, move around it, and view it from different points.
This perception might—or might not—have had something to do with the fact that Cephalons had what was known variously as augmented or punctuated intelligence. This meant that they had, in addition to one big brain, several “sub-brains”—ganglionic nodes, really—that took care of more atavistic body functions and left the big brain free to do … well, whatever it did.
Through his connection to the Force, Jax had occasionally come close to grasping the reality of this, but even a Jedi couldn’t fathom the precise nature of the Cephalons’ relationship to time. And, alas, what Cephalons could not do terribly well was communicate what they perceived. Tenses were lost on them. What happened the previous day or last century was as “present” as something that would happen the next day or a century in the future. And since they were linked to one another through the Force, a Cephalon might very well be able to “see” something that hadn’t happened or would not happen in its own lifetime.
Which was why receiving a message from a Cephalon Whiplash operative before a major mission was, to Jax Pavan, a severe test of his Jedi patience. He often sent the more dispassionate I-Five to interview Cephalons, but this time that hadn’t been an option. When Jax had received this message, I-Five had been off with Den Dhur and Tuden Sal, securing a series of bogus ship’s ident codes that might be needed for their journey to Dantooine. So he’d gone by himself back into their old neighborhood near Ploughtekal Market to meet with a Cephalon who’d installed itself in a residence that catered to non-oxygen-breathing life-forms. Cephalons preferred methane and liked their atmosphere a little on, as Den put it, the “chewy” side.
Jax had arrived at the Cephalon’s address in heavy disguise. To outsiders he appeared to be an Elomin diplomat—just the sort of visitor a Cephalon might be expected to have. Diplomats and politicians were always looking for an edge when it came to future—or past—events. The Cephalons had no scruples about divulging information. They merely were incapable of communicating it clearly.
Jax found the alien in a loft that was considered grand by Cephalon standards. Within the methane-infused habitat, it kept a variety of kinetic fountains, sculptures, and art wall displays. The Cephalons liked movement. The huge being—whose designation, Aoloiloa, loosely meant “the one before Lo and after Il”—lived behind a huge glass-walled barrier in which it floated in its soup of methane like a gigantic, mottled gray melon. It ate and communicated via a baleen that strained nutrients from the methane soup and vibrated to give form to thoughts that were displayed on a panel in an antechamber outside its inner sanctum. The name, Jax knew, was for the benefit of other sentients the Cephalons interacted with—a means for those temporally challenged souls to distinguish between individuals. Presumably the Cephalons had their own mysterious way of doing that.
Jax had announced himself using the translation device next to the Cephalon’s display panel.
“I, being Jax Pavan, come as bidden.” Now warn me of an Imperial plot.
The Cephalon, of course, did nothing of the kind. Instead, it asked a question: Depart you (have/will)?
Jax blinked. Clearly a question about a future event. “Yes.”
—Crux. The word typed itself onto the display panel.
“Crux?” repeated Jax. “What kind of crux?”
—Nexus, said Aoloiloa. Locus. Dark crosses/has crossed/will cross light.
“Yes, I know what a crux is. What does it mean—in this case?”
—At crux: Choice is/has been/will be loss. Indecision is/has been/will be all loss.
Jax waited, but the Cephalon did not elaborate.
“What does that mean: ‘Choice is loss. Indecision is all loss’?”
—It means what it means. Everything.
Jax kept his thoughts composed with effort. Listen, he told himself. Listen. “Whose choice?” he asked. “Whose indecision? Mine?”
—Choice upon choice. Decision upon decision. Indecision is/was/will be cumulative.
“Indecision over a period of time? Or the cumulative indecision of a number of people?”
The Cephalon bobbed up and down slowly, then turned away from the transparisteel barrier that protected it from the oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere of